District publishes employee salaries

THE PHILADELPHIA School District has taken another step into the digital age this week by making its salary information available to the general public.

The district published the free information, along with OpenDataPhilly, to promote transparency and community engagement. Since last year, the district has published 10 sets of data, with the salary information being the most recent.

The data is provided as a zip file that can be viewed using Excel or other spreadsheet programs.

"We are a public institution," district spokesman Fernando Gallard said. "We are driven to be as transparent as possible, and that has been the way we have operated, and we have provided this information before. Now it's going to be easier."

Previously, the district released salary information in response to requests from media or citizens.

The employee data released this week contains the pay, title and union representation, if any, for each of the district's more than 18,000 employees, but it does not include additional compensation such as overtime.

As expected, Superintendent William Hite has the highest salary at $270,000, followed by Deputy Superintendent Paul Kihn at $210,000.

As part of the open-data initiative, the district has also published school-by-school enrollment, catchment zones and vendors who were paid more than $50,000.